Well it's been awhile since one of my long winded hard to follow posts about my working enviroment, so now with a lovely summer rain preventing me from doing planned outdoor work today I think I'll just get started in describing a project setup...

The way I work has developed over 2 1/2 years of using Numerology exclusively to create "music" collections of sounds and timbres that once my "setup" phase is done, with modulations mulitple gate triggers, triggers that start sequences triggers that cut away at the sequences, triggers that turn on and off CPU instruments. Triggers that shift everything at intervals to give variation and introduce breathes so on. Once this setup has been set in motion and works trough it's courses I have lost all sense of owning what comes out.

With this way of working I get a multiple ways to control of what happening, not a real one window comprhensive overview but by jumpng from stack to stack and from the modules and mixer view I can quickly zero in on the aspects of the production that I want to tweek

At the same time with all this control, I lose immeadacy, in a sense the final outcome of all my machinations is no longer owned by me. Vexing in one way as I can't proudly and defiantly proclaim when I present the fruits of my labour that "I am the hero genius who has set down every note in a devine flash of inspiration! " boasting that he/she did it in a morning stupor before a first cup of coffee. No alas there will be no admireres swooning and gasping before they hit the floor "Oh he's mister Wunderbar!"

Instead of an omnipotent genius I feel much like a substitute school teacher arriving in a classroom midway through a wild battle between several students and yet against all odds is still bent upon achieving the mission statement and reign in the mayhem of youthful energy and direct it to some good use. Likewise in my project enviroment I spend much time trying to find ways to manage all this auditory exuberance somewhere, something useful, working out bright ideas to shape a phrase, tweek a level there, improve the cohesion of the different instruments, trim, modify and massage..

A productive use of time, a preoccupation these days productivity rules though does not lend it to these working methods. Even though I like to think of myself as a practical man but alas often I find myself pursuing impractical goals, unimagined goals a restless imagination on search for sonic gratification. Not having any music production boss right now, I am content with enjoyable yet in the short term unproductive playtime. But be warned this type play attitude of exploration needs a strong and patient heart and a least a modicum of background in regular means of musical work ! Okay I admit I'm often in experimentation mode, I find that it is fun, enlivening, experimenting with this big system is a crazy way to work ideas and yet it often leads to startlingly new textures and sounds vistas. I can assure you I would never have been able to dream up these soundscapes one piece at a time, I am often surprised and pleased, bemused as a substitute teacher who, after nearly giving up all hope of getting anything useful out of the classroom full of rouges. finds a strange and beautiful drawing left on the blackboard upon returning from lunchbreak. Diamonds in the rough!

My desciption will follow. Perhaps i can post the present project at the end of these many words..

The number of stacks is greater than what would at first would appear necessary to achieve my intended goals. I could for example reduce the number of trigger stacks, midi sequencer stacks, and sound modules stacks to two each or even only one each instead of four. This would make the mixer window much easier to navigate or at least make it visually cleaner and more intuitive.

The reasons though for breaking the stacks down so that they each only address or contain 3 main elements are:

1 To make navigating around within one stack much quicker, scrolling up and down a large stack with lots of modules to get to the module you need to tweek is tiresome, now I just need to use the next or previous stack keyboard short cut to hop over to say sequencer four from sequencer one, much quicker. Hyper links within one page does this but as we don't have access to these in Numerology jumping stack to stack achieves the same result.

NOTE to JIM Coker. I would make a feature request in context here, being able to assign a keyboard shortcut to jump to a specific stack would be a boon, say ctrl+number for jumping to non adjacent stacks...

2. When using to trigger gates to call up(turn on) sounds automatically having the softsynth instruments placed on four different stacks reduces dramatically the number of presets I need to use to facilitate this important CPU saving feature. Also setting up modulation destinations to the Sound syths becomes much clearer and cleaner when the number of entres for anyone stack is reduced.

3. Audio signals are grouped into four busses at the mixer window view for level tweeking and signal present confirmation overview. Also within each stacks module view I have a clear signal flow overview from the thre sound modules their routing out to the effects bus ends and in the Effects stack I can easily work with signal flow into the various effects per sound source. Also having one single Audio Mixer 3 three Audio input busses makes modulation and individual effects return level setting a whiz.

End of the navigational reasoning for the number of stacks.

But what of the purpose or workflow that this setup is useful for. How to use a setup like this and for what reason, whats the goal?

The main thrust in this workflow is to break the tendency for looped short phrases to become too regular, and predictable. To add silences in the flow, and to make a cohesive harmonic rythmic whole. Think of workflow goal as achieving the orchestra as one instrument (note not my term it was the title of course I attended by Hans Abrahamsen DKDM 1998 ). I want to achieve the many voices thinking with one mind. But not by having to tweek each individual voice in every detail.

The main stacks for achieving this orchestra as one instrument workflow are:

From these central control stacks each midi note producing stacks recieves a guiding impuls. The individual midi sequencers then are releaved of certain functions:

When to play and what Soft synths are active, is decided i the triggers stacks.

What harmony/scale pivot tones, decided in the Harmony stack.

How dense the note stream is. How many breaths and short pauses there are in the course of a melodic figure, decided in the Mute step stack.

How quickly the melodic figures are playing, decided in the Time stack.

How quickly the arrangement as a whole is played, decided in the Time stack. Here too I can setup project wide accelrandi/deccelarandi, and variable swing.

Velocity levels, though I so want this to work out I find velocity level tweeking from the central velocity stack gives the least convincing results for most soft synths as their presets often don't take that much advantage of velocity to shape their output. Though I find the AAS plugs like Lounge Lizard and Tassman Ultra Analog, Chromaphone, and String studio to be the most responsive to velocity right out of the box this is the physical modelling sound engines strengh. Nonetheless I've gone to much trouble to have central control of velocity control of all twelve sound instruments one very powerful tool, at least in theory. To get it to work optimally though will require much work tweeking the individual patches of each used softsynth. Think of being able to work rythmically and dynamically velocity intricate multivoiced ensembles between like sounding timbres similiar to string quartet or gammelan orchestra style orchestestration. For alll from the timing and velocity stack much like a real time conductor but with the added dimension of actually being the real time composer to boot!

Note to sound designers! Make your patches markedly responsive to velocity, aftertouch keynote number, mod wheel! Shessh..Why with these great sound modules do we need all the extra external modulation sources when normal playing technique at the piano keyboard has been enough to eke out loads of expression and for the last 300 years?!

Back to main topic I made this setup so I can break the creativte stiltifying reigns of having to tweek 12 different mono note sequencers when I want them to change key as a group, play louder, speed up, or have the sound instruments play in unison or change timbre (change input channel at the sounds stack).

The mono note sequencers then are figuration generators, how the movement of the phrase is shaped, scale or step wise, by skips, the range of the figure from low to high tight or over several octaves. Diversifying rythmic timing using step lengths and divides to create appogiatura, suspension repeats notes anticipations. These diversifications of the melodic material needs individual tweeking at each mono note. Here the launchpad is a great detail editing tool. It is also here modulations are applied to for example the start and end step position to break up the figures into there individual elements. Also at the mono note level I use auto tweeking devices to access and modulate among other things repeat note and note lengths to create variation. Intermono note timing contrasts like slow movement in one voice against a fast underlying ostinato figure there is done from mono note to mono note, but is this setup in the time time stack so I can quickly fine tune the interaction between voices across the whole projects 12 voices.

Following is a breakdown of my stack components, I've written similiar descriptions in the Tips and Trick thread but I think it's okay to repeat some of this here to keep this thread coherent, and perhaps on revisting these concepts I will be able to do a better job of illustrating my points. I think I'll also break up the explenations on a per stack/post basis.

Stack one the Preset changer Stack.

I use this stack as a global preset changer, this has several destination modules on several stacks:

Trigger stacks 2-5. Right now each program number calls up via stack presets my arragement project wide, 192 4/4 time bar sections give approximately 5.5 minutes of material at 100 bpm. So as we all no the playlist only goes up to 32 bar sections this preset triggering of the main arrangment trigger stacks gives me access to hours long productions if I should so choose.

I decide which of the twelve instruments are playing in the trigger stacks 2-5. I can quickly setup different instrumentations per preset by jumping from preset to preset manually with the midi out bus from this stack muted. I then setup a sequence to play them back in anyorder in the Preset changer stack and unmute the midi output. I know ther is a similiar functionallity setup in the Timeline, but I find this way of working much more detailed and manageble. Also I can concievable program these sequences using the Launchpad.

Modules used for this from top to bottom:

Velocity sequencer set with a output range that is greater than the number of presets that I want to use, say 1-16.

The Velocity sequencer is set to CV trigger step modus and gets it's input from a gate sequencer set to 4XW and fortyeight steps, this value matches the length of my arrangment presets at the individual stacks..

The Gate sequencer goes out to and Auxliary gate sequencer set to CV trigger play/Loop off, this is in Clk Div 1/16, I don't know why but Play mode CV trigger step only works when it recieves small subdivision gate signal like 5 sixteenth notes with this setup the Velocity sequence that sends the program number moves one step for every 192 bars. If I send it a 4XW trigger it always skips several steps so therefore this extra trigger step gate sequence is used in the CV trigger signal flow.

a 3rd Gate sequencers is used for initiating the Send now on the Program change module.

Program change module is set to Program change only, send on Rewind;off send on preset change;off. the midi channel is set here to match the recieving stacks presets recieve channel. Note here I gave each of the four stacks preset list a unique channel number to allow for individual preset control for each stack. For example it may be handy to have a short section of an arrange loop over say 15 bars by setting up individual Velocity sequencer/preset changers for each stack.

At present I've setup four paramodules and four Program change modules to future/feature proof this setup. The drawback here is that I use up four of my remote busses available 16 channels.

Next up preset control of the individual sound modules sound program/patches. although I haven't used this very common technique for the old midi module days I wan't to get access to this as change programs on a preset change per trigger stack preset or within one presets timeframe could be a useful way to diversify the arrangment where I might want to have several tweeks to a sound or it's reverb parameter that are quickly called up instead of having to do it through modulations to it's parameters.. U-he has implemented in Diva, Filterscape, Ace, and Zebra and easy Midi preset manager setup. Surge has automatic preset call up but difficult to setup numbers at it's just arbitrary goes through the lists of 1000s of presets and assigns them bank and preset number serially, AAS has a less intuitive setup where the first 128 programs are called up by default so you have to rearrange it's core preset list except with Chromaphone which loads the presets from the active bank ignoring bank number and using only program number this is okay I guess as you could use the user bank to function in the same way as the midi programs bank in the u-he synths. My 20 year old Korg wavestation has a program change mapping setup that is the most sofisticated solution, imagine that!

Anyways I've setup 12 program modules to gain access to program changes and use the main midibus to send program changes to my soft and hardware synths. An added difficulty with this setup is that I will perhaps have to delay the sendnow to the program change module to assure that the module is turned on by my auto turn on trigger from the trigger stack..

Thats the program changer stacks functionality to date, the other things I can use this preset changer stack to control is the time stack and perhaps the Velocity and Harmony stacks as well.

- Consider recording MIDI clips of the stuff you really like (as well as audio, of course). Someday you might have something really interesting to pop those clips into....

- When multi-threaded rendering finally happens, the spit will be by stack, so if you put several heavy synths in a single stack, they'll end up on the same render thread as well.

- As a possible work-around for your CPU load issues, consider splitting the heaviest synth or two into a separate project and run 2 copies of Numerology (via Terminal.app). Or, put them in Logic, etc... (that obviously makes modulation more work though...).

Quote:

Originally Posted by TwoToneshuzz

NOTE to JIM Coker. I would make a feature request in context here, being able to assign a keyboard shortcut to jump to a specific stack would be a boon, say ctrl+number for jumping to non adjacent stacks...

Thanks! This maniacal way of working has developed over many years, perhaps I have a slight touch of autism, which keeps me chipping away at seemingly insurmountable tasks where other more normal minds would long since have packed it in... Basic instincts might come into play here too, keep shaking the tree and the fruits are going to fall!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim

A couple tips:

- Consider recording MIDI clips of the stuff you really like (as well as audio, of course). Someday you might have something really interesting to pop those clips into....

Jim

Point taken! I think though as I keep all my project versions safe with two backups I'll be able to return to things in the future. But recording things to listen back to has been something I'm doing all along. So as long as I have a project date and a sound file date the match I'm pretty good at finding things of interest. The great thing here too is that I have all the Sound generators that I've used the last few years so I should be able to reacreate things that I created. Note to myself.. send the patch settings used on external gear into the computer and store with the project..

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim

- When multi-threaded rendering finally happens, the spit will be by stack, so if you put several heavy synths in a single stack, they'll end up on the same render thread as well.

Right now I've broken my Sound stacks up so they contain 3 mostly monophonic synths each. I imagine my next Mac should handle that load per processor . I think for big chords ala Brahms I'd use a sampled instrument.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim

- As a possible work-around for your CPU load issues, consider splitting the heaviest synth or two into a separate project and run 2 copies of Numerology (via Terminal.app). Or, put them in Logic, etc... (that obviously makes modulation more work though...).

Jim

Good adivce although these techniques would likely give me more mileage with a more powerful computer which even still will have it's limits, by all accounts my taste in Sound Generators is very CPU heavy. Though I'm unrepentant and will use them. Afterall this waiting for the right CPU has spurred alot of creative thought and as you will see has resulted in my discovering solutions that not only solve my CPU limit issues but also open up sofisticated new ways to work with timed modulations and so on. See my thread on CPU management under Tips and Tricks.. The idea of using Logic is not somthing that I relish, as the increased complication of the working enviroment will only delay me further in my goals of making my workflow swift and effective. It's mostly about the adaptive energy that gets spent learning new interfaces, or even that pause in the mental state that happens when you flip to another window. With my setup as it is now I can basically keep in stack view for everything I do Love it! I am thinking of getting Main Stage for hosting my Synths on the new computer setup. I just know from experience at present this Computer is so old that it can't really be saved by these work arounds..

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim

Have noted .... keyboard control definitely needs some attention...

Cheers,
Jim

Yes keyboard control/shortcuts are a quick way to access menus, popups and windows in many programs that once learned save time and make the user experience more speedy and flowing.. Though the launchpad can do alot in that area already. Especially stack to navigation. also Preset firing is well implemented.

Remembering that this project is a 12 voice/midi sequencer setup I've setup a trigger for each mono note. To make it easier to navigate, tweak and to give a simple overview I've divided these 12 Gate Sequencer triggers over 4 stacks of 3 each, here's a quick overview of what they consist of:

Three Gate sequencers that trigger mono notes set to Play mode CV trigger. At the same time they turn on and off AU sound modules and effects.

The two Gate sequencers are mirrored in their Cl div parameter, and the number of steps, I use 2xW and 24 steps.
Now for each period where the Main gate trigger is ON the parallel Envelope release Gate sequencers also needs to be manually setup. On the last step of the On period set in the Main Gate sequencer you turn fully On the Corresponding step in Envelope release Gate Seq, this mutes the CV input to the mixer and scope and causes the Envelope to begin it's release phase. at the beginning of the last step of the period.

Workflow, Main Trigger Gate Seq with the Release envelope trigger sitting directly below in the stack, set Main Trigger gate seq on period, set Release envelope trigger on last step of the period. I collapse the Release envelope Gate Seq after I have set it.

This little inconvient extra step allows precise control of the fade out of the main volume output from the Sound source.

Also this eliminates the need for the Delays that I had earlier used in various places in the stack. Additionally I have eliminated the seperate program change module for the effects stack which also reduces the number of midi channels on the Remote buss that I tie up per trigger stack to 1.

The effects stack has it's own fader box that fades the Effects persound up/down as needed.

The preset changer setup for turning Sounds and effects in detail follows:

Each Gateseq gets a unique number by sending it's CV gate output into a Ternary Op input A, if True a specific number=program number inputed by me representing that specific voice and program change number, if False -- > 0. The three Gate sequencers output numbers generated here get added together using two Binary ops, to achieve a turn off all Sounds/Effects value, I added an additional Ternary op Input is 0 B=0 preset value if true= 71 as well as a third Binary OP to add this value to the sum from the Gate Generators, if no Gates are on this with the number (71) which will call up a preset where everything in the Sounds stack is turned off. On the receiving stack Sounds and effects Stack I just need to setup my presets and synths effects that follow this scheme and the Project wide remote bus needs to be set as well as the Channel number . I'll detail this further in the Sounds stack.

Early on in my Numerology learning experience I started building big projects with many Voices/Sequencers.

One thing that seemed time consuming and anti creative with this setup was fine tuning the time relationships between the different Voices/Sequencers. I soon discovered with Jim Cokers help a method for getting central control of both the project wide tempo, and the individual sequencers from just 2 Fader boxes routed into 8 paramod with destinations main clock on the Clock stack and the Clock Divisions for the 12 mono notes in the project. Now it's a breeze to just grab a fader in the Time stack and adjust timing, very conductor like....

It can be hard too see what Clk Div is reached by the position on the fader so within the Time stack I’ve included a Gate sequencer controllded by the left most Fader in so I can see what Clkdivion a position on the Fader calls up.

Also in the Time stack to help me zero in on the correct voice/sequencer when tweaking I have made a dummy panel of 6x2 CV inputs These correspond to the 12 CV trigger outputs. This is great to have also for project wide signal confirmaion of what voices are active.

Finally because timing and effects especially delays are so tightly related I've made an effects bypass panel using 3 button boxes routed to the bypass parameters on my AU effects for example the u-he Uhbiks. An added tweak to this is when an AU effect doesn’t have a bypass parameter I've set up a workaround in the Effects Stacks where I route the dry signal output from the synth send bus into input one and the Wet output from the effect into input two of a 2 into 1 audio switch. To control this switch from my Button box n the Time stack I've set up the corresponding button on the Bypass panels as follows: CV output---->Ternary op, if true=2 if false=1-->paramod, destination-->Audios Switch, parameter-->Switch value. Now on pressing the Button the signal switches between the wet/On gold or the dry signal/off further on the effects stack this switches output gets patched into the effects returns busses output mixer.

So the Time stack is the Time central, the effects bypass central and can be used as a Trigger signal overview panel. I speculate if I should merge the Time stack with the project wide Clock stack to save space...On that noteI notice that sequencers on the Clock stack do not show up on the Launchpad...

This setup is clarified in detail in two posts in the Tips and Tricks stack.

So I'll spend more time discussing some general issues I have with this functionality.

This is perhaps the most difficult central control element to reign in and control for me for several reasons..

The original idea of using a 3 voiced framework means that when you look at your mono note sequencers your not actually seeing whats' being played, it's being transposed up to three different times!! :
1 each mono notes is being transposed by one of the man voices of the Harmony progression Soprano, Bass, Tenor. These homophonic progressions aren't music in themselves more like a type of harmonic current or flow regulator. These create a flow where the progress doesn't jostle sharply between voices and from step to step, they basically give a ground framework that allows space for the mono notes to move. to play the dissonant tones, step wise within each individual voice. Things just sound right and open when they gyrate around this rather colorless centering "chords". It's allow the individual melodic elements plenty of room to move as they always a related to a stable platform..

The next level of transposition comes from the "Root" Interval sequencer. As the Base framework is only up to 12 tones long to create harmonic interest over longer passages I transpose the whole base frame over long time periods. So this obscures even more what notes are actually playing by looking at the mono notes pitch sliders...

This is the setup I've used for over a year. I'm not consciously muddling with these sequences structural elements as yet it's more used as a safety net so that I can get on with the other areas of interests such as the Time, texture, and arrangement/instrumentation. So it's an area that needs to be developed honed and it's ramifications need to be worked with in order to be fully understood. Harmony books on the table please!.

I can easily use a day or even a week to work out a useful harmonic framework scheme if i should so choose because once it is done I've got a framework that I can build on for months. Think the Art of the Fugue!

Now this way of working has been supplemented by the use of the Scale=Mode Quantize and the Key parameters this adds extra spice and sort of goes against the more purest three part framework with Root transposition I had used earlier.

Scale Quantization and Key transposition gives very marked color and contrast to the Harmonic progression, but also can muddy the waters as well when combined with the three part frame work with Root transposition. Root transpostion gets usurped by modulating the key parameter on the mono note. The Scale modulation usurps the three part harmony, so perhaps I need to consider using either Scale and Modes or the original 3 part model with Root transposition but not both!

Modulating the Start and Stop steps of the progression is a way I've begun using to create variations in the type of harmonic flow.

This is directed to the three part progression so I can create arrested field where the harmony is frozen within a short subsection of the progression, this combined with the root transposition would create sequential movement similar to circle of fifth progressions or augmented or diminished progressions... Again this is something I set up using my background knowledge of baroque and classical, jazz harmony, it's a cerebral thing but I have to admit it's also an area I need to do much work in to make it real, more deeply significant and potent..

So for the setup read the Tips and tricks posts on Harmony on a Global scale..

It's important to remember that there is and offset that needs to be adjusted for in this setup so the CV step output needs to be routed through a Scale and offset module with and offset value of "1" inserted in the CV path.

Note: these Gate sequences are preprogramming the destinations sequences step mutes. So the speed of the Gate sequencer doesn't have to match the receiving mono note, only that it should be fast enough to get it programmed ahead of the sequence..I think 1/16 clock division is about right.

This mute set stacks 12 Gate sequencers are setup to be shfited one step every 4 bars all 12 step mute devices shift one step. This to create variation. As it's never 12 voices playing at once this global shifting isn't really noticed as such.

This is repeated for all twelve mute gates by patching the same step shifter Gate sequencer to 12 slots of six paramodules.. If I wanted individual control of this I'd have to either insert delays between the shift Gates seuqencers gate output, or have descreet shift gate sequencers for as many Sequencers I want to have individual control over..

The whole point of this step mute stack set up is to add pauses in the flow of the individual phrases, breaths or to allow a phrase to payout it's contents in an every shifting window, They are not for muting the whole phrase. That's done in the Trigger stack where you decide the occurance regularity of the phrases project wide. By using the Trigger stack you get the benefit of Auto turn on/off fade up down of the Sound sound modules effects this saves CPU and reduces the amount of noise going out the audio busses.

I like working with rests like this and again from a central place i can see and tweak the density of the projects various note streams..

Wade

*One note about stuck notes, I like them! sometimes they introduce drones that I never generally use, but now because fo this experience have to admit it, long held notes are a powerful musical tool. Interesting that because of this bug I have learned about a useful technique..